Talking about warp is a bit premature because- questions of if it will work aside; we have nothing that can power it and we have insufficient negative mass energy equivalence to do anything more than wiggle a laser beam interference pattern so slightly that no one wants to say that it is actually happening for fear of running afoul of peer review. Or enough to sort of maybe wiggle a hanging tissue paper on a windy day.

But that aside; precautions for impact avoidance/mitigation at low relativistic speed should suffice. Not that we have that either, yet. The way warp works there is no added velocity inside the bubble but just in the boundary region between normal space and the isolated interior flat space.

Yes we all agree that documenting every detail is always better. But we have to be realistic and not insist with undue requests from the only person conducting this research that is openly discussing it (certainly Shawyer's team and Prof. Yang's team members have never directly disclosed any data or answered any questions whatsoever in this forum).

For the EM Drive we have a resonant electromagnetic cavity which according to classical physics (encompassing the theory of General Relativity as well as linear Quantum Mechanics), should not accelerate in outer space (under the action of no external forces or no external fields, assuming that the Quantum Vacuum is indestructible and immutable, involving no CP parity violation) because of the universal law of conservation of momentum. (*)

A billion tests that resulted in the EM Drive producing no acceleration will hold no attention from the scientific community, since such results are fully expected.

A reproducible, incontrovertible test showing self-acceleration (and certainly one showing levitation of the test article for anybody to see) will hold much more attention from the scientific community than a billion tests showing no acceleration.

Once you get that reproducible, consistent, incontrovertible result, one can proceed to discuss the kind of engineering development that Edison engaged in, and where negative results of variations from the reproducible, consistent, incontrovertible result are valuable in optimizing the device.

At the moment we are still seeking that reproducible, consistent, incontrovertible result.

__________________________

(*) we are not dealing here with an inexact science. This is not like Medicine, where a drug can be effective with 70% of the population, ineffective with 29% of the population and produce severe negative effects with 1% of the population. Conservation of momentum applies in physics for 100% of all cases bar none. Ditto for conservation of energy. These are universal laws, just like everybody here is subject to gravitation and we don't have a certain percentage of the population that is unaffected by gravity.

Dr. Rodal:

Agreed, all known laws of physics must be observed, but the fun part is trying to take unusual phenomenon like that demonstrated by the EM-drive and show how they DO observe these laws, but in new and unexpected ways. IMO Woodward's and these Q-V based drives are interacting with the cosmological gravitational field via the proposed Q-V interactions we are now trying to get a handle on. And of course that leads us to another of your above comments and how we can reduce this to practice :

"At the moment we are still seeking that reproducible, consistent, incontrovertible result."

Reproducibility of test results is what is still lacking in our current copper frustum testing. So I'm now trying to develop the right combination of test ingredients for these copper frustums when using RF power levels of ~80W or less, since it appears from simulation that higher power, in the tens of kW, can overcome a lot of low power problems, but alas that solution does not come cheap.

IMO it now appears that what the missing key ingredient to producing consistent thrust on the order of tens or even hundreds of micro-Newton on cue at power levels of less than 100W is how much harmonic content is present in the RF signal. Oh yes and the magnitude of same injected into the RF resonant system relative to the magnitude of the near pure sine-wave RF signal. A very low harmonic signal that our voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is producing. In other words higher amplitude and wider bandwidth harmonic content appears to produce higher thrust levels for a given RF input power and Q-factor product.

BTW, this harmonic thrust generation dependency is predicted by both Woodward's and White's respective conjectures with the addition of the need for proper phasing between all these fundamental and AM & FM modulation signals. In our current experimental setup however, our harmonic generators have all been generated by happenstance and at low levels that are induced by the interactions between our PLL circuit and the RF 2- & 3-stub tuners + coax runs to the frustum used to RF Z-match the amplifier to the cavity that appears to be generating extra resonances in the RF amplifier chain that are then fed back into the VCO and RF amplifier via conducted and radiated emissions. I’m pretty sure that this is why we observed such great power to thrust efficiencies with the TE012 and one of the TM211 resonant tests when our RF amplifier was dying from internal corona discharges. A condition that is choked full of not so low level sideband modulation that was ignored at the time because we were not monitoring for that condition. This extra harmonic content was also true for the Cannae results as well.

So now it looks like we really need to be able to inject harmonic signals in a controlled manner into the frustum cavity that will modulate the fundamental resonant frequency established by the VCO. A setup that is able to explore this harmonic content venue with additional on-purpose modulator and monitoring equipment that will of course require more time and money…

Maybe stupid question... but why didn't NASA send small scale demonstrator to space? It doesn't have to be heavy (resonance chamber doesn't have to be rated for outside pressure), it doesn't have to have even energy source (it could be plugged into ISS energy grid). Many stupid toys made it to ISS so I think something small, maybe of 1 kg weight could be sent. It would function, or not. But it would be the PROOF of usefulness.

It's possible my eyes glassed over at some point, so I apologize if this has already been answered. I thought the preferred next step for Eagleworks testing was a high power, broad frequency test series, but it sounds like this plan has been shelved. What's changed, and/or has been learned?

It's possible my eyes glassed over at some point, so I apologize if this has already been answered. I thought the preferred next step for Eagleworks testing was a high power, broad frequency test series, but it sounds like this plan has been shelved. What's changed, and/or has been learned?

The next step remains the same: higher power and modulation. What is being discussed is what is the optimal way to achieve the desired modulation in a controlled , optimal manner, for example:

inject harmonic signals in a controlled manner into the frustum cavity that will modulate the fundamental resonant frequency established by the VCO. A setup that is able to explore this harmonic content venue with additional on-purpose modulator and monitoring equipment that will of course require more time and money.

instead of using an old-fashioned magnetron (which have been around since the 1920's, but suffer from the magnetron's output changing from pulse to pulse, both in frequency and phase)

Since they had already reported that they were working on experiments using a magnetron (to try to reproduce the results of Shawyer in the UK and of Prof. Yang in China), my understanding is that nothing has been shelved, but what is being presently discussed is to perform first the magnetron experiments as originally planned and to simultaneously plan for this more sophisticated approach involving injecting harmonic signals in a controlled manner (which would involve getting more money and time, with the possible payoff to optimize the output of the EM Drive, to surpass the performance achieved in the UK and in China). Sounds like logical R&D program planning to me.

In Dr. White's (edit) mutable Quantum-Vacuum (Q-V) conjecture, since the Q-V compression effects scale with at least the time rate of change of the E&M energy-density phi (dPhi/dt) and dphi^2/dt^2 in the resonant cavity, the input power to thrust generation scaling should be VERY non-linear until the frustum design in question is at least generating a fully collimated Q-V beam, see previous 1kW to 100kW Q-V jet simulation work. However this non-linear thrust scaling with input power may not stop at just the fully collimated Q-V beam stage, provided there are higher than 4D dimensional interactions going on that could be extracting energy from the universe's cosmological gravitational field via several proposed thermodynamic based energy harvesting cycles that this Q-V technology could open up to us.

"Picture shows only modulation"

Good point, but at the moment MHz modulations of the RF carrier is all that we can perform since it would take another set of Phased Locked Loop (PLL) controlled VCOs and 100W microwave RF amplifiers to drive AND phase control the upper harmonics of the 1,937.2 MHz carrier signal with those being 3,874.4 MHz and 5,811.6 MHz at a minimum. And at ~$6,500 each for vacuum compatible RF amps, that's not going to happen until we've already proven this concept to NASA management. Once again the Chicken and egg problem.

So at the moment we have to rely on larger amplitude MHz modulations of the 1,937.2 MHz carrier needed to generate reliable ~100uN signals, (the current sideband levels are approx. -50 dB down from the carrier). And/or we fall back on the Eagleworks' in-development 1.2 kW magnetron & waveguide teeter-totter experiment that had better replicate Roger Shawyer's first generation EM-Drive's thrust generation capabilities of at least ~16 milli-Newton. We are still looking for experimental first light date for this magnetron experiment as occurring by the end of June. Hmmm, that should also be about the same time window that we can pull a vacuum in the Warp-field Interferometer test article as well.

Maybe stupid question... but why didn't NASA send small scale demonstrator to space? It doesn't have to be heavy (resonance chamber doesn't have to be rated for outside pressure), it doesn't have to have even energy source (it could be plugged into ISS energy grid). Many stupid toys made it to ISS so I think something small, maybe of 1 kg weight could be sent. It would function, or not. But it would be the PROOF of usefulness.

Answer: Risk NASA management is a very conservative lot and they don't want to fly something that might not work.

It's about reputation. Even 0.1% risk of becoming an international laughing stock in case of experimental failure of this kind of revoltionary claim is too high. It's a prudent stance. Better crank up the (milli)Newtons beforehand .

It's about reputation. Even 0.1% risk of becoming an international laughing stock in case of experimental failure of this kind of revolutionary claim is too high. It's a prudent stance. Better crank up the (milli)Newtons beforehand .

They may do it secretly. All they need is to send the experiment aboard launch vehicle of some probe as sub satellite... Alternatively they may use US air force x37 spaceplane. I think it is much better and more decisive to have real space test than anything possible here in gravity well. If it doesn't function even if it functioned in vacuum chamber, then earthside test were improperly set... Or your experiment needs to be adjusted to zero gravity.China could have thought of something similar with their EM Drive experiment. Secrecy is easy If it functions then you tell the tale and take gratulations, if it doesn't then you tell no one.

It's about reputation. Even 0.1% risk of becoming an international laughing stock in case of experimental failure of this kind of revolutionary claim is too high. It's a prudent stance. Better crank up the (milli)Newtons beforehand .

They may do it secretly. All they need is to send the experiment aboard launch vehicle of some probe as sub satellite... Alternatively they may use US air force x37 spaceplane. I think it is much better and more decisive to have real space test than anything possible here in gravity well. If it doesn't function even if it functioned in vacuum chamber, then earthside test were improperly set... Or your experiment needs to be adjusted to zero gravity.China could have thought of something similar with their EM Drive experiment. Secrecy is easy If it functions then you tell the tale and take gratulations, if it doesn't then you tell no one.

I wouldn't get too deep into this. Even the Chinese birds aren't that secret.....(their secrecy is mostly about when they are launching). X-37B payloads are "secret" but nothing crazy. NROL is pretty secret, but people well-versed in those birds have a general idea what they do.

Nothing NASA does is all that secret, it just seems that way to outsiders as they aren't seeing enough "NASA" in the mainstream media and that's versus the conspiracy sites that claim rocks on Mars are actually proof of alien dishwashers

If anything related to this goes into space in the future, I'll bet it won't be secret.

It's about reputation. Even 0.1% risk of becoming an international laughing stock in case of experimental failure of this kind of revolutionary claim is too high. It's a prudent stance. Better crank up the (milli)Newtons beforehand .

They may do it secretly. All they need is to send the experiment aboard launch vehicle of some probe as sub satellite... Alternatively they may use US air force x37 spaceplane. I think it is much better and more decisive to have real space test than anything possible here in gravity well. If it doesn't function even if it functioned in vacuum chamber, then earthside test were improperly set... Or your experiment needs to be adjusted to zero gravity.China could have thought of something similar with their EM Drive experiment. Secrecy is easy If it functions then you tell the tale and take gratulations, if it doesn't then you tell no one.

The X-37B would be a good choice actually for a testbed, it is after all specifically designed for experimental returnable payloads. Also from what the Air Force have revealed about OTV-4 it is by coincidence testing an experimental propulsion system for the AFRL & also doing materials testing for NASA.

1) The present force measured at NASA Eagleworks for the EM Drive is only about 0.00001 pound force = 0.00005 Newtons.

2) NASA Eagleworks has been using a sensitive torsional pendulum.

3) The X-37B orbit is too low to verify propulsion by solar sailing with LightSail A, because atmospherical drag prevents solar sailing in the X-37 B orbit. Only verification of deployment of the LightSail A solar sail is possible at the X-37B orbit. It would act more like a drag sail in the very thin upper atmosphere around Earth: it would slow the solar sail and make it lose altitude.

4) What would be the financial or experimental justification to return to Earth an EM Drive? If none, that's another reason why deployment from the X-37B would not make financial or experimental sense.

In Dr. White's (edit) mutable Quantum-Vacuum (Q-V) conjecture, since the Q-V compression effects scale with at least the time rate of change of the E&M energy-density phi (dPhi/dt) and dphi^2/dt^2 in the resonant cavity, the input power to thrust generation scaling should be VERY non-linear until the frustum design in question is at least generating a fully collimated Q-V beam, see previous 1kW to 100kW Q-V jet simulation work. However this non-linear thrust scaling with input power may not stop at just the fully collimated Q-V beam stage, provided there are higher than 4D dimensional interactions going on that could be extracting energy from the universe's cosmological gravitational field via several proposed thermodynamic based energy harvesting cycles that this Q-V technology could open up to us.

"Picture shows only modulation"

Good point, but at the moment MHz modulations of the RF carrier is all that we can perform since it would take another set of Phased Locked Loop (PLL) controlled VCOs and 100W microwave RF amplifiers to drive AND phase control the upper harmonics of the 1,937.2 MHz carrier signal with those being 3,874.4 MHz and 5,811.6 MHz at a minimum. And at ~$6,500 each for vacuum compatible RF amps, that's not going to happen until we've already proven this concept to NASA management. Once again the Chicken and egg problem.

So at the moment we have to rely on larger amplitude MHz modulations of the 1,937.2 MHz carrier needed to generate reliable ~100uN signals, (the current sideband levels are approx. -50 dB down from the carrier). And/or we fall back on the Eagleworks' in-development 1.2 kW magnetron & waveguide teeter-totter experiment that had better replicate Roger Shawyer's first generation EM-Drive's thrust generation capabilities of at least ~16 milli-Newton. We are still looking for experimental first light date for this magnetron experiment as occurring by the end of June. Hmmm, that should also be about the same time window that we can pull a vacuum in the Warp-field Interferometer test article as well.

Best, Paul M.

Although any sum below $100-400k could be readily obtained through something simple like a kickstarter for means of R&D (due to prior popularization of the concepts amongst sci-fi faithfuls), I'm assuming that there is a strong aversion to such methods because contributions made from the general public are likely to come with pressure to produce a tangible end-product and not simply confirm or disprove a scientific hypothesis? Judging by how lightly speculation and confirmation is being handled by Dr. White and colleagues I'm assuming the development of expectation and the pressures of it are the primary reason such avenues are unfavorable even if they could fast-track development... Basically, the last thing they want is to become the latest cold fusion incarnation. Is this an accurate assessment?